All this led to the complex set of algorithms which is Google Search to be very confused as to what was important on aLBoP.  When you Googled aLBoP or A Little Bit of Personality, suddenly it was trying to give search results of random image links and obscure posts, instead of things people really wanted to find, such as Type Specializations, the Super Simple Series or Type Heroes.

It also didn’t help that we were working on other aspects of aLBoP and life in general, so posting has been a slow game all year.  As I understand it, Google prioritizes frequent posting, as well as Google+ shares (nepotism ? lol), neither of which were in our favor anymore.

But this also meant that non-aLBoP links, especially from popular sites, suddenly came up much earlier in search results.  One in particular, with the most click-bait-y subject line ever, notably rose to the first page of search results right away: a forum thread with the subject line “A Little Bit of Personality Blog: Is it a scam or did I overreact?”

Well if the promise of a scam won’t get people to listen to you, I don’t know what will.  Talk about the most buzzwordy word possible lol.

Ha, which just now when I Googled to be sure I was quoting the name of the thread correctly, I saw something relieving which I didn’t know, but I’ll talk about that in a minute here.

So I have never clicked on this link, I’m pretty sure. As soon as we were live again on WordPress, I was trying to make sure that Google had our sitemap, working on our SEO, etc., so I believe I saw that link there as early as January 2017.  And seeing it there immediately upset me, not gonna lie.  But I wanted to listen to the immortal words of Taylor Swift and shake it off.  Plus I had way too many other things to worry about, not the least of which was continuing to be sure my links went where they said.  And I also knew that reading people lying about me would just upset me and keep me from getting things done.  So I went on with life and working on content like INTJ – The Dragon, which came out in February.

But apparently a lot of my aLBoP friends, (people who we’ve met through their long-time reading and loving of the site, but have become so very much more than just readers, as so many of you have ?) had seen this link too, and several of them were even more upset than I was about it.  They checked it out on their own and then came and told me about who had posted on the “scam” thread and what they had said.

As soon as Justin and I heard what the original poster of the thread had said, we were immediately like “Oh, him.” ?

Now before I go briefly into what this guy’s “grievances” were, let me tell you what I was relieved to see this afternoon while writing.  When I Googled “a little bit of personality” and saw this link there, not actually clicking on it (it’s gross enough to smell a pile of poop, I don’t want to put my hand in it), it says under the link:

“Oct 2, 2015 – 10 posts – 4 authors” [emphasis added]

*Whew* when my friends were describing what was on there to me, I thought it was like pages and pages of all these people saying how much I suck! ?  To know that it’s just four people, two of which I know who they are and knew that they were like that before they even had anything to complain about, is incredibly relieving.

Okay, so four people. I don’t know who two of them are because I haven’t actually read the thread, although it’s likely I would know them too.

Most of the people who get really angry about aLBoP are ones who liked us at first, often even people who vied heavily for our attention initially, until we say something that offends them, or more often their worldview, and then they hate us with the burning passion of suns and must tell anyone who will listen.  Although I don’t think there is a single one of those people who we didn’t get a red flag in our minds at their first email, “watch out, this is one of those kinds of people” no matter how positive they were toward us at first.  Observing people is our job, after all.

Person 1

So with this particular guy, the one who started the “scam” thread, *sigh* I knew from his first email “ah, one of those.”

He bought a typing + personal chat package from the store, sometime around then in 2015.  We don’t actually carry personal chat time anymore, because it was taking way too much time and we were getting behind. We actually *still* have some out that we sold but haven’t done.  We will either go ahead and do those ones at some point, or refund their money.  But I know there were several really cool people who ordered them near the end, so I would really like to fulfill those at some point here, rather than refunding them.

Anyway, we don’t carry them anymore because they had gotten really stressful and after we had a forum, which we’ll talk more about later, we thought people can get their questions answered there anyway, answer each other’s questions, etc.

We’ve never been especially timely with Typings, but we do always get to them.  I don’t remember how timely we were fulfilling this guy’s order. We do them in big batches, usually, where we sit down and type a bunch of people at once, oldest order first.  So if we took a while to get back to him it wasn’t at all because he was a less pleasant customer, because the time we take has nothing to do with that.  So if you have to wait a while for your Typing, it’s not because we don’t like you, lol <3 (If we’re ever taking too long, you *can* send us a polite email and ask if we can go ahead and get on it.  But we always do get to it and we always feel really bad making people wait.)

Oddly, I vaguely remember doing this guy’s really fast anyway, so I don’t think that was part of the problem. We may have been like “this guy is a live wire, we shouldn’t let his sit too long.”  We do occasionally do that.

Anyway, if I understand correctly, his main reasoning in calling us a “scam” is that the following happened:

1)  He ordered a typing + a video chat.

2)  We felt immediately “eh” about him, but fulfilled his typing order in a normal and polite fashion.

• I think it was his condescending attitude toward people in general in his first email that seemed like #badsign to me.

3)  He was displeased with the type we gave him.  We have a post about this.

• No matter how consistent and repeatable the results are, no matter how many people are over the moon about our typing of them, no matter how many people are repeat typing-customers because they see how it all lines up over and over again in real life; there are so many people who are set on the type or set of types they want to be a part of, and therefore who dislike the type we give them.  But the way we Facial Type is a science, with consistent data-sets that have proven universally consistent thousands of times, holding up over time and experience.  We can’t go changing the answer because somebody gets his panties in a wad.
• There are also plenty of people who are personally threatened by the idea of Facial Typing at all, or just very uncomfortable about it.  You are welcome to feel however you want on the topic.  But I don’t understand why people order from us if they feel that way.
• It’s like someone coming across town to tell you he thinks your house is ugly.  I feel like “… Okay, thanks?  Then don’t look at it and get off my lawn.”  The internet is a big place and no one is making you stay here.  Honestly there’s probably a more fitting analogy with someone who hates seafood yelling at Red Lobster or someone buying an orange and getting mad that it’s not an apple, but eh, I like the lawn one.

4)  We don’t give refunds on Typings we have fulfilled.  We never have, and say so very clearly on the Type Me page, which has all the instructions. That page didn’t exist in its current version at the time, but we have always listed that on pages describing the Typing process.

• The effort and our typing results are what is being paid for, and people who get snotty about their results take far *more* effort than people who are happy with them.  That’s not to say you are required to be happy, but that even if you are not, our time and our results have still been given to you, so we can’t just refund that.  If you don’t trust our scientific process and our definitions, then that is completely your prerogative.  But if that’s the case, then please don’t order a typing and waste our time, as well as yours.

5)  He also applied to the, at the time, brand new Phase 2, via a separate self-invite system.

• Okay, the thing to know about all our websites is that they are 100% free, always are, always have been, always will be.  We currently have—*counts*—4 websites.  They all have free admission and no subscription fees or anything of that nature.  The only things we charge money for as part of aLBoP are specific services and merchandise. That used to include video chats, which as I said we don’t offer anymore, and now includes Personalized Typings and, hopefully in the future, merchandise such as t-shirts (you can buy t-shirts here, but I really want to make more designs and figure out a better system for producing them), patches or whatever other physical or digital items you guys might want to buy.  We do not have any premium content, if the definition of “premium” is content you pay for.
• All other funds from aLBoP come to us via Patreon where people can support our content, which helps us produce more of it, or via Love for aLBoP, one-time donations in the aLBoP shop.  (Everyone has been remarkably patient as I haven’t been great at giving out everyone’s Patreon rewards, such as the monthly desktop wallpaper for $5+ people, etc. But I really am excited to do that and plan to do it sooooon.  Not one person has said anything about it yet, I just feel really bad because your support means so much to me. <3)
• HOWEVER, we do have content that is restricted to people we have given access. Like I said, we have 4 websites, of which this is the first; Phase 1 as we call it. Yes, this is a blatant reference to S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Phase 2 in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Why, yes, we are giant nerds.  Here, have a picture of stick figure Phil Coulson with his gun from Avengers, if you haven’t seen it on the Phase 2 Intro site.

• But while we do gate these websites–the Phase 2 Intro behind a self-invite you can use right now if you want (it’ll open up in a new tab so you don’t have to lose your spot here <3), and Phase 2 gated behind applying and us getting to know you—ALL of them are free.  Let me repeat that: none of our websites cost any money.  (The fourth site only has a few people on it so far and it’s still under construction anyway, but it’ll have a similar kind of gating.)  These websites are provided free of charge, including our time spent on the Phase 2 forum, where we give lots of personal help and advice.  We don’t even have ADS on any of the websites!!!! (Although we are considering adding them to our videos, because we find that less invasive.)

6)  Where was I?  Oh yeah, he had applied for Phase 2, but then we were busy and hadn’t gotten to adding people to the new Phase 2, back before the process was automated.

7)  He sent an annoying displeased email.  I could pull up said email now to remember the details (I never delete aLBoP emails from anyone, which is why my Gmail storage is exploding), but I really really don’t want to.

• But I recall that he was firstly, really whiny about his typing.  I don’t remember if he actually said he couldn’t be an F, like we had typed him, or if that was just the impression we got from his email, which is a very common tale, especially with people who hold onto the internet’s definition of Feeler.  Men typed as Fs and women typed as Ts have been trends in our grumpiest clientele, because people believe that Feeler means soft like mush and Thinker means Vulcan, and people equate those to feminine and masculine traits, respectively, which is frankly pretty dumb.  Although I can only blame people so much for wanting certain types, when the internet deems some types so wildly more worthwhile than others.  However, how people react when they’re disappointed says a lot about them.
• The second thing that really got our eyes rolling about his email was his attitude that because he had given us money, he owned our time.  Money seemed like his main card to play, which makes all the more sense why he made money the focus of his thread title, calling us a scam.  Anyway, it was a very “but you have to do what I say, I paid you,” attitude.
• But if you’re not sure on my character judgment of him, go ahead and look at the thread.  I haven’t read it, but if he doesn’t come off whiny and like someone who feels like money makes him entitled, then I will eat my hat. Well, I won’t, but it’s the only idiom I could think of.  But if you don’t agree then you won’t agree, and that’ll be the end of it, but at least I will have left the opinion up to you.

8)  So we saw from his email, which wasn’t a surprise from his original email, that we didn’t want to waste time and energy having a personal chat with him.  We also didn’t want him on the brand new forum, which as a private, free forum was our prerogative.

9)  So I sent him an email telling him that we would refund the chat money because we didn’t want to talk to him more and that he was the first person banned from the forum, which was true.

• I think we only actually banned… 2.5 people ever.  I say 2.5 because we officially banned 2 people from ever entering the original site, and were close to banning another, but he quit before we could fire him, so to speak.
• Was I especially nice in this email reply?  No. I wasn’t trying to be.  I wanted to really let him know why we didn’t want to deal with him anymore, and frankly he was a buttmunch.  Again, you can go look at the thread if you want to verify his buttmunch-itude.

10)  WE REFUNDED HIS VIDEO CHAT.

• Again, like I said in point 5… No… 4, we don’t give out refunds for typings. We had fulfilled that part of the deal, so we kept our $15 dollars (I know, huge quantities of money being exchanged ), but refunded him the $10 for the video chat we didn’t give him.  He was our first refund; we had to figure out how to do it on the website.

11)  I think he probably replied again, angrily, but I was super done with it.

12)  Shortly after (we launched Phase 2 on September 15 and he wasn’t in the first several batches of applications, so he probably rage posted pretty quickly), he started that thread.

• Apparently his reading comprehension was limited enough that he thought paying for a video chat was paying for Phase 2…I guess… Even though you would have to read the Phase 2 announcement page from the time to even apply… idk. I’ll give him the limited benefit of the doubt that he was more stupid than flat-out lying… Stupid isn’t a nice word, it implies mental limitations and implies that if other people missed information, I think they’re stupid too, which I don’t.  “Making the decision to be willfully idiotic” is a much more fitting term.  I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt that he was being willfully idiotic, rather than flat-out lying.

13)  I thankfully haven’t heard from him since and hope he finds happiness despite his buttmunchiness. Totally a word.

Anyway, you can have any opinion you want about my choices in responding to him, but since he had no purchase that wasn’t either fulfilled or refunded, he has zero claim to a scam.  Although, you know, I’m really rolling in his fifteen bucks.  *Evil laugh*

Person 2

The other person who I know wrote on the “scam” thread, got upset in the very earliest days of the forum. It was a lot of drama in a short period of time that happened… ? two years ago today! [At time of writing, which was the middle of September.]  Holy crap, I didn’t know that when I started writing.  Happy anniversary to drama ?.

There was a lot of drama in those early days of the forum as we were attempting to establish an atmosphere different than so many forums and so much of the internet.  This other person wasn’t the only one involved at the time, but since other people didn’t feel the need to run my name through the mud, I don’t feel the need to address their personal issues with aLBoP.

This woman was INFP and I’m referring to her by her type since I have no intention to be petty enough to share her name.  That doesn’t mean I think all INFPs are that way *obviously,* it’s just easier than saying “woman” on repeat, because that’s weird.

But, as I’m sure she talked about on the thread in question, she thought we were harsh and mean on our forum in a way that she deemed “never called for.”  She was referring to one particular forum post of mine.  Here’s what happened, from my perspective:

If you are unfamiliar with cognitive typing, you will need to know that ESTPs like to poke for reactions.  It’s how they interact with the world, which is a good thing.  And because motives and character judgment is their primary Type of Information, it really really matters to them what people are really like. They hate fakeness, perhaps most of all the EPs, and attempt to cut through the crap of pretension (wow I had no idea that was spelled with an s instead of a t, interesting), or fake nicety, by catching people off guard and seeing how they react.  Reactions are an EP’s bread and butter, after all.

So since very early aLBoP, there was this ESTP.  Great way to start a story lol. And he had been all over the internet and in real life, and had seen people being crappy on repeat, so he was used to that as the norm rather than the exception. We can all relate with that.

So when he found aLBoP he immediately began his routine “poking for legitimacy” like a 19th century miner biting a gold coin lol.  But because of the crappy he had experienced, he was used to having to poke oftenly and fairly hard to see what was really inside someone.

But when he first began poking at aLBoP, I didn’t know this backstory.  I just saw that the same guy was commenting on *every* new post, and giving me pokie lip on each one lol.  He would comment things on each post, trying to get a reaction, commenting about how I said this or that, or on what he’d read elsewhere that disagreed.  And at first I was just like “>:( leave me aloooone! If you don’t like the posts, why are you here??”

But that was the thing, he kept staying around.  I didn’t get it.  I felt like his comments meant he didn’t like the posts, so why didn’t he just move on?  And the comments were getting more positive over time, usually just with something pokie at the end or something.  And he ordered a typing from us and I was like “What???  Well, I guess he does trust us some… Huh…”  That was before Facial Typing, but when I realized his type it just made all the sense.  (I have obviously since seen his face and it was spot on what we predicted, for the record.  Take that people who try and pretend this isn’t a science ?.  When it can accurately predict what people will look like before we see their faces.)  And he had really been open about himself in his typing emails (of which there were several, telling us about himself, which is so adorably ESTP lol ? <3), and I was already liking him a lot more already.  And then he posted pokie comments on the Spartan, being skeptical and I’d feel grumpy about him again, but as much as I wasn’t a fan of the way he was poking, feeling like “how many times are you going to have to poke me before you’ll believe I’m legit? :P”, I did still really like him and care about him, and was starting to appreciate his bold, frank, poking sense of humor.

But this back and forth dance of poking and a surprising growing loyalty we saw from him about aLBoP, was at an interesting place right before we launched Phase 2.  I remember he had left a really sweet comment on SS:P2 (which isn’t there anymore because we moved, remember?) and I was feeling really supported and happy about him.  And yet because of this history, and the fact that I was aware the poking was still strong with him, lol, Justin and I were nervous about him as we came up to launching Phase 2.  I remember three individuals that we were worried about with it and this ESTP was one of them. But like I said, we liked him too, so Justin and I had high hopes about the whole situation as we launched.

Now, if you haven’t read what is now the Phase 2 Intro, and don’t know about what kind of content we have over there, it’s not only more in depth than what we have here on Phase 1, it’s about understanding yourself in a very core way, even deeper inside than cognition even, which is why we didn’t want it to be drive-by internet bait.  It’s not secret, but we think it’s pretty special, and we wanted to foster an environment of reading-comprehension and self-examination, for this information that is intended to help individuals grow, for people who want to do that. Like I said, it’s pretty special to us, and we’ve had immensely special experiences seeing it work in the lives of others as well as ourselves <3.

But because of the crap he’d experienced, and because most of the time Motives aren’t treated as a valid Type of Information, even after all the times he’d poked us, this ESTP felt very wary as he came onto Phase 2 and began reading the new information.  It was all new stuff and lifted the ceiling on his own potential, making him worried he was going to be judged unfairly for things he didn’t know yet (I hope that’s a fair assessment of his feelings at the time).  And so he sort of acted out about it.  From what he said later, he skimmed the Intro, feeling grumpy about it from the very beginning of the information, and went to the fresh new forum even more wary than he had started.

He read the forum rules, which we had written purposely open-ended, talking about attitudes that weren’t acceptable on the aLBoP forum, and referenced content from the Intro in showing how those attitudes would be identified.  Having been treated unfairly other places for doing the “wrong” action (his last step and mine), and I think feeling grumpy about the new information being referenced again, like he was expected to know everything right away or, like I said, be judged unfairly, our ESTP’s first forum post was a criticism of the forum rules, saying they were too open ended and wouldn’t work.  I remember in one of his posts in this conversation, he said that other forums’ rules were better and said it would be better to be like every other forum, which was the opposite of what we were aiming for.

Justin replied very nicely to him, explaining that he wasn’t expected to know everything yet, and to just relax and settle in, trying to encourage him to get comfortable and let us worry about whether or not we could reasonably make it better than other forums.

(I swear, I don’t know why people consistently treat Justin like he’s going to be the intense, harsh one. 9 times out of 10 *I* play bad cop, not him.  Which people don’t expect from me because I’m adorable and smiley, lol, and the unsuspected nature of it works in my favor.)

But our ESTP (running out of ways to say that) was still feeling upset from the Intro, and didn’t want to be soothed about the topic, still arguing about it being unfair.  I think some others might have talked too at that point?  Don’t remember.  But it was a particular “won’t let this go” thing iirc.

And we were working so hard on the atmosphere of this baby forum.  Justin and I were getting about 2 hrs of sleep a night, trying to help the forum feel like a safe place where people could actually talk about things, and this was the last thing it needed.  And I was so done with this ESTP’s mood and attitude at that moment.  He was being so stubborn (which I lovingly joke ST stands for sometimes, lol <3) and obstinate, and I decided “no more!”

I sat down and wrote a reply post that was intended to smack him upside the head, hard, and say “Stop it!  I think you can be better than this!  Are you going to prove me wrong?!”  It was an intense post, not gonna lie. I actually remember very little about it besides my calculated fury and the fact that I quoted XKCD.  And I said he wasn’t allowed to say “I didn’t do any specific actions wrong, you can’t call me on my bad attitude and intentions.”  Oh and I may have said he was acting like a “dick” at some point ?… Yeah, apologies, that is a phrase I use, not actually on Phase 1 before this point.  It’s just so concise and jerk is just not strong enough sometimes!!  Is it bad that it’s a little bit funny looking back at how intense I got, since it’s been very resolved on that front since?  Like I’m kind of embarrassed that I am that intense of a person.  You know, as if someone took a picture of my battle face and I’m looking back at it now like ? “That’s what I look like angry, huh?”

Which isn’t to say that I rage posted.  I don’t rage post.  Case in point, how the thread that sparked this whole post is now over two years old, and I began writing this post over a month ago.  I am meticulous and thorough and attempt to predict the reactions my words and choices will evoke, as is my one-true-mental-love as an ENTP.

I stayed up all night writing that post, trying to imagine how he would reply to different parts and trying not to let him wiggle out of it, and yet wanting to give him the opportunity to do better if he wanted to.

I am a very passionate person, I’ll give you that for sure.  People and things mean more to me than I can ever say, often against my will.  But that means while I get really truly incensed about plenty of topics, I will never write an angry message to someone if I have no hope of getting through to them.  Like this post for example; there’s a reason it isn’t addressed to the people over on that thread.  I have hopes of actually communicating with very many of *you,* however I won’t try and communicate with them.  I don’t have any hope that that would do squat.

Ask Justin’s brother, also ETP, sometime about the intense face-slap email I sent him, ? he’s definitely never forgotten it.  But I would never have sent it if I didn’t respect him and his ability to apply things and desire to grow.  (He replied epically to it, btw.)  If I ever get truly angry with you, and let you know it, know that I respect you enough to believe it’ll make a difference to address the issue with you.

ETPs need to be poked as much as poke (saying that is going to get me into trouble with people lovingly poking me, heh), and I wanted to poke this ESTP hard enough to get a reaction of change, and I poked as hard as I felt he personally needed, based on knowing him personally and knowing his cognition.

But the INFP woman in question immediately replied informing us that you never ever ever (need a bunch more evers) speak to someone that way!  She said we were mean and rash and harsh and she would have no part in it!  And for the record, she was definitely not the only one concerned.

The post I wrote *was* in fact harsh, but it was not a knee-jerk reaction.  It was a calculated move decided upon, based on love for the person I was talking to, and the hope that snapping him out of the way he was acting would induce him to be *more*, which I hoped he could be.

And if you consider “lovingly harsh” to be an oxymoron—if you believe that there could never be a situation where harshness would be the appropriate reaction in order to get through to someone you care about—then this may not be the place for you, especially the later Phases of aLBoP.  aLBoP is a place for adults to come of age, and attitudes that say “you always deal with people this way or that way” are, frankly, childish and therefore wouldn’t fit in with the atmosphere of aLBoP’s later Phases.

We deal with people on a case by case basis, not by one-size-fits-all rules, and this was actually what I thought would be most effective.  And to be honest, it worked.  He immediately stopped in his tracks and said “I’m sorry, what can I do differently?”  Honestly, his reaction was much more epic and adult than I expected it to be, but I did anticipate that the best way to handle an ESTP acting that way, was to shock him to get his attention, and stop him in his tracks.

But this INFP woman didn’t care whether or not it worked.  She was all too pleased to be indignant.  She told the forum (if I remember correctly) that she was leaving, and also emailed to chastise us again, and to tell us she was leaving.  We emailed her a short but polite “sorry you feel that way” email, but tbh were pretty pleased to see her go.  (Now when I say “polite,” I actually mean polite.  I don’t consider my harsh post in question to be polite, for example, but it wasn’t intended to be polite.)

She was actually one that we *did* have a video chat with before we even launched Phase 2 (you guys see why I didn’t want to carry them in the store anymore?), after we had typed her.  And while we made it very pleasant and answered all the questions she had, to her stated satisfaction, Justin and I both could tell there was something about aLBoP that made her very uncomfortable.  He and I discussed afterward, “that was good… right?” “yeah, but we had to make it good.”  I could go into the ins and outs of what made her uncomfortable, things having to do with her Type Angst, blah blah blah, but that just seems petty at this point.  Interestingly, I talked about her in What if I’m not the Type I Thought I Was and referred to her as a “cool INFP.”

I was being nice.

I will say, disappointingly, that there has definitely been an FP trend among the people who have been the least cool about aLBoP.  I mean, I know soooo many cool FPs, and I suspect we get more of them, quantity-wise, since their Type Specs are all about the meaning that they can get out of Individuals and Situations <3 and I think and hope that aLBoP is right down that alley.  But when an unhealthy FP feels like we’re a threat to their own personal meaning, ? watch out!  We’ve especially had a lot of ESFP and ENFP guys (more often guys than girls, interestingly) who have approached us as “nice guys” with obvious warning signs, that when they ended up showing their true colors were anything but nice.  I won’t go into tales of the one who wouldn’t stop emailing me in all-caps not-so-nice words, or the one who spammed comments about how ENTPs didn’t have feelings.  I don’t make character judgments flippantly, especially negative ones.  And unfortunately, my spotting of warning signs has proved depressingly accurate, as individuals have demonstrated with later actions.

But in a twist of couldn’t-get-more-ironic, the reason I decided to write this post was because Justin was chatting with the very ESTP she had said I was abominably too hard on.  He’s been one of our biggest supporters ever since, both in having our backs with emotional support and sharing aLBoP, and he’s been ridiculously generous on Patreon (I hope it’s okay to share that, I never know what is couth when it comes to talking about money and donations ).

Lol, when he found out about people discussing him on that thread he was like “Hey, they’re talking about me!  That’s pretty cool.” ? ROFL, could he *be* any more ESTP?!  Idec, I love you, you are seriously amazing and I can learn a lot from how you let stuff roll off of you!! <3

But he had a friend whom he’d been telling about aLBoP, and the friend saw the “scam” link and got wary, so I felt like it was finally time to address this.  I have better things to do than tell people on the internet that they’re wrong, but when it’s deterring other people who are looking for aLBoP, then that’s something I need to try and fix.

*Whew* sorry this has been so long!

But I don’t want you guys to worry that this has delayed posting at all.  The only major posts this year have been The Dragon, like I said, and the Four Types of Love, both of which I am ridiculously proud of, although I have been worried sick about not posting more, especially since you guys have earned it with Patreon all year; don’t think I’ve forgotten it!!

But the reasons we have been gone so much are somewhat other aspects of aLBoP, working on later “Phase” stuff, especially training people who want to help us help all of you guys more, but also working on our own personal situation as well.

In June I was offered a part-time job by an INTJ friend of mine that I really respect, at his business, and I felt like it was the perfect time.  (For the record, he doesn’t know I’ve typed him shhh ?)  And while I’m really enjoying it and I think it’s benefitting aLBoP, I felt fairly overwhelmed and anxious the first few weeks, so that took a lot of my attention at first.  But really, there’s been plenty of other aspects going on with us working things out to establish ourselves for the long haul.

Which, for the record, the part-time job is in financial planning, so I had to have a background check for it, which I passed, so I guess the FBI doesn’t believe I’m a danger to people’s money if that helps with the whole “scam” thing lol… Unless that’s a ruse and they’re watching me *right now.* O_O  Considering that I’m writing this from the bathtub, that would be super pervy.

However, apparently I have very little fingerprints left, I guess from my skin condition, so I am considering a life of crime.  If anyone has any suggestions, please leave them in the comments below.

Anyway, I have two short Super Simple posts almost done, working on a new format for shorter posts and faster posting, so I hope to get those out to you guys ASAP.  I will make up for all the months I’ve missed, I swear!!  Thank you guys for your patience as always.  And for your trust of us as a source.  I can’t tell you how much it means to me those times when people are impugning our character (which thankfully seems to be happening less and less these days), to know you beloved readers are out there; knowing that you know us, love us and have our backs.  I couldn’t ask for a better audience or better friends. <3

My hope in clearing this up is to just soothe people’s worries and hopefully overcome misleading search results so that new people can find aLBoP every day, and hopefully feel like who they are and the way they think naturally is worthwhile and wanted.

Much love,
<3 Calise

The post aLBoP a Scam? Drama, Scandal, Ooh Ahh! appeared first on A Little Bit of Personality.

And it only took… -_- okay it took a long time.  Way longer than I anticipated.  But it seems we had way outgrown Blogger… like two years ago.  We were trying to make a blog format, intended for family vacation pics and pictures of people’s dogs, viable as a full-fledged website format.  Not that blogs can’t be professional.  But I had done an insane amount of jury-rigging to make the COGs, etc. look like professional pages on our poor little outdated Blogger aLBoP.

So when I used the Blogger importer thingy for WordPress, it did save me tons of effort.  Well, compared to retyping the posts myself  But every link had to be updated and 90% of the posts were FUGLY!  *Scream!*  It was so terrifying and overwhelming (and some of the less visited posts might still be nasty looking, I make no promises.)  But we did it!

Between Justin combing every single post and making sure every link was updated (there are 84 posts, FYI, and if anyone needs a bulk URL updater for WordPress, we have one to recommend, because going live would have been literally impossible without it!), and me going through all the major posts *and* 192 COG pages one by one to be sure they were pretty and not full of nasty spacing and picture issues, we finally did it, but we’re pretty well wiped. *tired face*

But… I love it!!!  I love how the new start page looks!  I love how the new contact page looks!  I love the new pics I made for the Type Me! page (all of those today, as a matter of fact :P)!  I love the header and the fact that I figured out all by myself how to change the html so that there aren’t little grey boxes around all the images.  I love the new sidebar blurb and I *really* love the drop down menu at the top!  *Melt*  I love it all!  And even though it took way longer than I anticipated, I really am so proud and I really do feel like it was worth it. <3

Okay, so going forward!  I’m gonna bullet-point these…

• If you’re waiting on a Typing you already ordered, thank you so much for being patient!  I feel like it would be foolhardy to promise when we’re going to get all caught up, because of the holidays, but we haven’t forgotten and it’s at the top of my aLBoP to-do list!  That’s why it’s the first bullet-point lol
• “Guaranteed Major Posts” for November, December and January, that you guys earned as a group through your Patreon contributions, will all be coming in January (is the plan anyway).  Feedback from you guys said it was okay to count web versions of the COGs as October’s, which I much appreciate, but I’m very excited for the new stuff we have planned for the new year.  One of the first ones planned is actually Super Simple 1.5 (to go between Part 1 and Part 2… obviously lol) as a more thorough look at the Four Types of Information and differentiating them from each other.  Actually, if you have unresolved questions about the 4Toi, please go leave them on SS:P1, and I’ll try and incorporate them into SS:P1.5 if I can!  Also, we’re really really excited for a new intro to aLBoP video we have planned that we’d love to make one of the January posts, if you guys are cool with that.  It should be a really cool way to introduce new people to aLBoP!
• Phase 2:  Like we said in the last thank you video, we’re moving Phase 2 and the Forum to WordPress as well, and actually separating it into two parts.  There will be a Phase 2 Intro site and Intro Forum, that has a similar self-invite system to the one we already had in place, for people to read the Phase 2 Intro, get their bearings and ask questions, etc.  But then there will also be a separate main Phase 2 site and Phase 2 Forum for people who are ready for more content after the Intro and other intro-ish posts.  We’re really excited for this, and think it’ll help everyone get the content and attention they need for where they are in the learning process.  We’re also using it as an opportunity to delegate to people we really trust to handle a lot of people’s initial questions about the intro, so Justin and I can spend our efforts on producing new content, rather than answering FAQs on what’s already there.
• So, because of all this ^, we’re a) not extending new invites to Phase 2 atm and b) going to be working hard on getting the new Phase 2 and Phase 2 Intro sites live.  But with all the time and effort that getting “Phase 1″—as we call this, main aLBoP website lol—live, I am absurdly behind on my Christmas preparations.  Like seriously, I have a ton of DIYs I haven’t even *started* yet! :O  So you might not be able to expect any of that stuff until we get a chance to work on stuff after the holidays.  I mean, we tend to work on stuff on weekends and holidays anyway lol, but we would like to get the chance to spend time with family and, you know, sleep once in awhile.

But seriously guys, I feel like aLBoP is mine again, in a way that I haven’t in a really long time.  I mean aLBoP and all its phases has been the most fulfilling project of my lifetime, but over time I felt like I spent so much time defending everything that aLBoP is, that I wasn’t able to just stretch out and play in the party that is humanity, anymore, which to me is what aLBoP is really all about.  I feel like I can make it about that again, finally. <3

As the holidays and end of the year are approaching, I want to take this opportunity to tell you guys that even when I don’t get to say it, *you* are what make aLBoP a joy to me.  aLBoP has given me many of the most precious relationships I have.  I can’t tell you guys how much I’ve missed everyone on the Forum lately, and how often I think of you all.  I would say individual names but I don’t want to embarrass anyone on the internet lol  Besides, there are so many more of you than I could count anyway!  And I’m sure more of you than I know personally.  But know that your love and support has bolstered me through every hard (and insanely tedious, the past month :P) time, and that I could never do any of this without you guys!  I only hope that I can lift and strengthen you guys as much as you have lifted and strengthened me!

That’s my goal for 2017(:O!), to spend it working on things that will help as many of you as possible, reach new heights and new happiness by understanding yourself and your own potential, more than ever before!  #SquadGoals!  Can I pull that phrase off?  Doubtful. ;P Ah well.

Enjoy the new site organization!  OH!!!  And don’t forget to update your Pins/bookmarks, etc!  Eventually I’ll change all my Pinterest urls, but that is a project for another day.  And leave me new comments if you’re so inclined!  Bittersweetly, all the old ones were lost in the move although I still have *all* of them saved in my email, because that’s how I roll <3

Merry Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanza, Life Day, or whate’re you celebrate!

Love you guys a bazillion!

<3 Calise

The post Sparkly New aLBoP! appeared first on A Little Bit of Personality.

The new and improved return of Personalized Typings and introducing Cognitive Orientation Guidebooks (COGs)!!!

What are COGs?
Cognitive Orientation Guidebooks or COGs, are aLBoP’s definitive guides to the 16 cognitive types.
Each one includes:

• E vs. I
• P vs. J
• First and Last letter combinations
• N vs. S
• F vs. T
• Middle Letter combinations
• Each type’s unique Cognition Steps
• Type Specializations
• Type Angsts (including all *8* that haven’t been released yet!!)
• Paradoxitype

And averages 10,000 words each!  That’s just under 160,000 words total :O!

How much are they going to cost?

Since these took us months upon months to write, let alone develop theories, most of which can only be found on aLBoP, it would be completely reasonable for us to charge a lot for the COGs.

We’re not going to do that.  In fact, we’re not going to charge anything for them at all!  *gasp!*  That’s right, my friends, these behemoths of cognition are *free to everyone* so that you can learn about not only yourself, but everyone you know… for free

What are you playing at?

The British have much cooler idioms than we do in the States.  We have many hopes with making the COGs free; here are the ones I can think of off the top of my head:

Word of Mouth

If you like the COGs and they’ve helped you, we hope you’ll share them with your friends!  Quote them, email them!  Use your handy-dandy social media!  We’ll have html versions up later and you’ll be able to Pin the crap out of them!  I hope you do

Personalized Typing Packages

We’re using the COGs to overhaul our whole Personal Typing system so now we can type not only you, but whomever you can give us a picture of through the power of Facial Typing!  And the whole thing is now much much faster since the COGs mean we don’t have to reinvent the wheel with every person we type!  And cheaper too, at $15 for the basic package  Want that extra personalized touch?  For $25 we’ll *also* live chat (either text or video) with you for hours about all your cognition questions!  There’s some other options there too, in case you either want to give, or receive a little extra love.

COGs will make you want to be Personally Typed even more!

 

While we know you’re smart and tenacious, we honestly doubt your ability and stamina to comb through nearly 1,000 pages of cognitive information to make sure that you and your loved ones are typed correctly!  If you want to try, then go for it; it doesn’t take any more of *our* time!  But I read and see *soooo* many people mistyped online and in person, even plethoras of aLBoP readers.  It’s usually honest mistakes especially over letters like J/P (which pretty much flip your entire cognition process on its head!), and I can always see where the train went off the rails, but I really don’t find it a good use of anyone’s time for me to go around dropping “You’re not really a XXXX” bombs on everyone’s head.  It must be requested of me

 

We want you to be able to read them all!

You and the relationships you have with people in your lives are important to us!  We want you to be able to read and get to know and appreciate*all* the cognitive types, not just your own!  Including any types you’ve struggled with, so you can see where people are coming from and that stereotypes are not all she wrote.

We want you to learn from them!

We’ve seen a markedly huge improvement in the tone and caliber of our overall interactions with the aLBoP audience over the course of the last two years.  A mishmash combination of us making a name for ourselves, misconceptions and stereotypes being pointed out, more amazing people finding us and everyone learning together… what we’re doing actually seems to be working!  *faint*  And on the even brighter side, so many of you have shared with us how aLBoP has helped you understand yourself better and improved your life in various ways, which has in turn lifted and inspired and given us hope for people and the future.  And aLBoP has given us friends, wonderful friends all across the world!!  And if we can have more of that — a better digital culture, the feeling that we’ve been able to help real people, and real life friends — then sign us up!

There are so many good reasons to give you the COGs for free!  So use them!!  Share and read them to your heart’s content!  And let us type you and your friends, your children (toddlers and older are easier, babies are still in beta… in more ways than one), your favorite historical figures or celebrities, the person you have a crush on… everyone, so that you can use the COGs to understand them and love them for the unique people they are!  COGs and Personalized Typings go together like oreos and cream cheese, like nori and rice, like tater tots and ketchup… Time to wrap up and have a food break, Calise?  I think so.  While you enjoy those, I’m pretty sure we’re going to have a little “WE FINISHED” party, here at aLBoP headquarters (aka the little house with the red door).  Cause I’m pretty sure my INFJ and I have earned it!

Much love,
<3 Calise (and Justin, her INFJ)

The post They’re Here: Personalized Typing Packages and COGs!!! appeared first on A Little Bit of Personality.

And all with the aim of making *you* feel like you don’t need to have a cape (or be like someone else) to be a hero.  And this is exactly the real-life applicable guide you need to do it!

All in an easy to understand, this-leads-to-that format   Are you excited yet?  I hope so!!  It’s been such a labor of love… for you guys! <3  We’re so proud to be *about* to release our babies into the world!!  Soon.  So soon!  I’m not kidding, all the words are done (160,000 of them :-O), I just have some pictures to finish!

The post It’s Coming… appeared first on A Little Bit of Personality.

A Little Bit of Personality is almost two years old and I’m constantly overwhelmed at how giving, loving and intelligent you guys are!  You’re always there showing us your support through both your words and actions.  You’ve been incredibly patient, even when things haven’t always gone as we’ve expected, or when trying to explain things in a brand new way is a little harder than anticipated   Your questions are remarkable, thought-out and unexpected, so often giving me posts upon posts of information I’m bursting to give you! (Once again, patience is always appreciated ;))

And so many of you have made the extra effort to not only be readers and fans, but to be true friends; not just caring about the info we can provide you, but caring about us as individuals.  It’s incredible!  And I know, super mushy.   (Cue the “Aw, Mom!  Gross! Can we go and play now?” kind of faces.)

Anyhue, in honor of how awesome you guys are, we’ve decided to use February to celebrate that awesomeness in a myriad of ways.

1) Thank You Videos!

We are *finally* going to make and release all the ridiculous videos that aLBoP supporters have creatively (and with evil laughs) suggested!  They are sure to be comfort zone razing, but crazy fun nonetheless

2) Catching Up on “Love for aLBoP” Orders

In February I will also be attempting to get *all* caught up on giving out everyone’s digital Thank You gifts, including Thank You emails, wallpapers, and personalized stick figures I haven’t yet given to the generous parties!  I feel soooo bad that it’s taken me this long!

You’d think from helping other people with the way they think, by now I’d know that apologizing too profusely doesn’t really help anyone.  Instead I will merely say “Thank you” again, for being so patient.

{Bonus: As it happens, I’ve found saying “Thank you” rather than “I’m sorry” tends to be more effective in many situations, as apologizing tends to make both the wronged party and the mistaken party feel resented, while gratitude makes both feel appreciated instead.}

3) The Fan Love/Lurve Page

Also long promised, the “Fan Lurve” page will be a compilation of wonderful things fans of aLBoP have done and said!  I still can’t decide if “Lurve” is too silly or confusing, so please chime in and let me know if you like Love or Lurve better!

For months I’ve been collecting quotes of the sweet and beloved things you’ve said about aLBoP and how it’s helped you in your life.  Throughout February I’ll be asking you if it’s okay to use quotes from your individual emails, as testimonials about how much you love aLBoP   Though I figure as long as you posted a comment publically it’s okay to use (though you’re always welcome to request your quote be removed ), if it was private, like in an email or Facebook message, I’ll definitely get permission first!{Edit 3-3-15: LIES!!!  Actually, my INFJ came up with pages upon pages of wonderful quotes from your emails, and I simply wouldn’t be able to catch up the way I need to if I emailed each of you for permission!  I’m being careful not to post anything too personal and feel free to request your quote be removed or made anonymous!}  Though of course you could help me by either giving me permission, or specifically sending in a brief aLBoP testimonial, if you want!   Obviously that would cut down on the already daunting email load I’ll have for this project

Also, pictures!!!  You know I love pictures!   We’ve received a couple pieces of *incredible* fan art which were sent to us completely unsolicited!  I honestly never even thought to ask because I didn’t really think of what we do as being a fan-art-worthy endeavor!  lol  And yet the ones we’ve received have been so beautifully thought-out and inspiring that I get a giant lump in my throat every time I think of them (and not just because I have a sore throat atm :P).  We also have some awesome fan photos, including people wearing their “Keep Calm and Be Yourself” t-shirts and a few readers decked out in Halloween costumes by type.

Pleeeeease!!!  I’m not above a little beseeching   Show us your beautiful art and your lovely faces!  They’ll make me super happy, as well as bringing color and interest to the Fan Love page, as long as you’re cool with me sharing.

This page is also where the “Friends of aLBoP” sections will list the names or pseudonyms of people who have supported aLBoP!  Yay!!!

Oh, and please let me know how you want to be credited, for testimonials, pics, donations, videos etc!  I’ve found this to both be a remarkably important problem and surprisingly forgotten thing to mention, with aLBoP in general.  Some people want to have their full names, websites, pictures, etc., while others don’t even want a pseudonym.  I really understand both ends of the spectrum and in between, but I never know which should be my default assumption.  As general principles, if it’s something sensitive, like a personal question from an email, “he” or “she” might be the most I’ll mention.  If it’s not very private, like a cool general question or a quote from something you said publicly, I lean toward your first name and last initial, or whatever you signed your signature with.  But honestly, people are so lovely and diverse that I usually don’t know what the heck to do and it would be nice if you just told me!   /love rant done.

4) A “Fan Stats” Video

This one isn’t super important, but I thought it’d be fun.  So long as we’re not too swamped trying to finish all the “Thank you” videos (I know sometimes I put it in quotes and sometimes I don’t.    I defy you and your grammar!), we’ll do a video talking about reader stats like the top ten countries aLBoP readers are from, what browsers they use and some of my favorite random search keywords!  Okay, that sounded cooler in my head (are you surprised I’m a nerd?), but we’ll also talk about trends we’ve noticed about what types tend to frequent the site the most, who speaks up in comments vs. who would rather email, and which types we wish we saw on aLBoP more because they’re way underrepresented!  (btw, Internet Explorer is waay far down on the list, which makes me so proud <3!)

What Comes Next?

What comes after all of this blatant fan fawning?  Well, that’s the thing; the whole point of aLBoP Amore Month is not simply to kiss your little feet, but to catch up, *especially* on the aLBoP Shop before the release of the long-long-long-awaited Modular Personalized Typings!  When we’re finished with aLBoP Amore (and maybe somewhat concurrently), we’ll be finalizing each of the sixteen modular pdfs, in their trademark aLBoP thoroughness, including the release of the remaining Type Angsts so that they can be referenced and applied to each type <3  We’ve also brilliantly (if I do say so myself) come up with even more ways to release them to you with greater haste and volume so no one has to be left out if they want help determining their own personality   Yay!!!

Also, be thinking about what kinds of rewards you’d like to see on aLBoP’s Patreon page, which will most likely be coming in March (with rewards in April)!  We want to know what would excite you guys, especially on a personal-rewards basis, and we’re super excited for the group-funded tiers to bring you things like a certain number of guaranteed posts a month, more requested content like Q&As and Character Spotlights, and use it as an opportunity to bring you everyone’s favorite, Type Heroes, more quickly!  This way you guys get the content you want and we’re able to produce it and still have groceries!  Win-win!  All joking aside, you guys have been amazingly generous and we’d still be doing this even if you couldn’t support aLBoP at all… but the pace might have to be glacial.

Which, in a way, I think is a great segue into the next soon-to-come on aLBoP   Actively for months, and in the back of our minds since before aLBoP’s inception, we’ve been working on a new, completely free, by self-invite only (meaning you need an invitation, but anyone can ask for one), advanced-user section of aLBoP.  We’re going to call it aLBoP: Phase 2 (yes, as a call-back to Avengers, because *Avengers!*)  and it’ll be for the people who want more of the kind of content aLBoP has always offered, who are ready to apply even more awesomeness to their own lives, and who honestly want something new and archetypal to open new horizons to them.  It’ll also be a place for awesome people to get together, make friends and digitally hang out on the Official aLBoP Forum!  Yay!!!  Many much yay!

While Phase 2 stuff won’t be anything secret, and we hope to lay it out in a format that anyone can understand, we want a little bit of a moat so that Phase 2 won’t be the kind of thing that people come from Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr or Facebook, skim a post, leave a stupid comment, and leave.  While most our readers are fantastic, intelligent, thorough and caring, we do still get the occasional “Seriously?  I literally just answered that *in* that post!  Five times!!  In bold!!!” type readers and comments here in “Phase 1”, which are the kind of thing we want to avoid in Phase 2 with the kind of in-depth content we want to give you

In short…
We are insanely excited about celebrating *you*, our readers and how totally awesome, amazing and rad you are!!  February should be a really fun month but, even more exciting, it’s a promise of things to come.  Because we love you <3 and we want 2015 to be a banner year for you becoming who you truly want to be!

Much love,
<3 Calise + Justin, her INFJ

Stay tuned!  Throughout aLBoP Amore Month content will be linked here:
Thank You Video: Beyonce Cover …and Interpretive Dance
Fan Love!

The post aLBoP Amore Month and What’s to Come appeared first on A Little Bit of Personality.

The post Q&A Quickie: “When Will You Release More Personalized Typings? appeared first on A Little Bit of Personality.

This time we have lots of quotes from a bunch of *different* PPPs, about the common misconceptions people have about Feelers’ relationship with logic, and what defines F in general.  All these quotes happen to be by my INFJ because, even though we read through your emails, determine your type, and figure out bullet points of what you need to hear, together, he has been writing the vast majority of the PPPs themselves to free me up to write blog posts, comments, social media stuff in general, and not go out of my mind with laundry.  Also, he happens to be an excellent writer and has a sexy grasp of principles.  But, you know, that’s why I married him   (Well, that and he’s a good kisser.)

The post PPP Show and Tell: Feelers and Logic appeared first on A Little Bit of Personality.

Firstly, as I pointed out yesterday (or really early this morning I guess), aLBoP has had a lovely little makeover!  I’m really quite pleased with it and hopefully it’ll fix the navigational issues that lots of people have expressed!  That being said, if there is anything you miss about the old format, let me know and I’ll see what I can do

Also, I had a big scare this morning (or afternoon maybe :P) when I got up.  I’d gone to bed really late, satisfied that the blog was all happy and reorganized… until *dun da DUN!* I checked the url on my phone!  Eeek!  Infinite redirect!  My phone was stuck in a loop of unhappiness and couldn’t reach the blog no matter what!  Gah  I may have panicked… a little ;D  But my INFJ came to the rescue and used the programing skills he’s learned modding WWII Civilization to fix the blog!  Though we weren’t able to make mobile devices redirect automatically to the Start Here page (Bloggers fault.  Apparently they said they’d fix it soon… last November…), they can at least access the blog without spazzing out now.  And desktops will go to Start Here automatically when you type in aLittleBitofPersonality.com, or click on my stick-head.  If you want your phone, tablet, etc. to go right to the same “homepage” as the desktop edition, just set your bookmarks to www.alittlebitofpersonality.com/p/start-here.html instead… that is, if you still use bookmarks… do other people still use bookmarks?  Sometimes it feels like Pinterest and my social media stuff replaces my bookmarks these days.  Anyway, back on topic

Secondly, {drumroll} we’re finally releasing more aLBoP Personalized Personality Typings!!!!  Yay!!  I’m going to put them up in the aLBoP Shop the moment I’m done posting this and we’re only going to be releasing a few at a time, so get ’em quick!  They’ll be available at three different price points this time, to suit the needs of different readers.  More on that here.  And there’s a specific Personalized Typing FAQ now, so check that out!  If you don’t get one this time, or if the price point you’re interested in sells out too quickly, no worries!  When we’re done with these we will release more, we just don’t want to get backed up like a… all the analogies I can think of for getting backed up are nasty… like a chocolate fountain  The point is, we’ll release more soon.  And I’ll update here, Twitter, Facebook and Google+ whenever we replenish the store.  We’re very excited to connect with more of you personally and help you apply the principles of aLBoP to your own personal cognition and life

Oh, and if you haven’t yet, check out the new Browse by Person tab, Answers to Questions page (which is still in progress), and updated T-shirt page, with information on my plan to move the T-shirt operation away from Spreadshirt and into my home!  Which, in the end = less expensive T-shirts!  Definitely a good thing!  Oh and don’t miss the watery new pictures on the Support aLBoP! page or the fun ways to hang out with us on Let’s Be Friends!  Plus, you know, exciting content and videos on the way!  Yay for a happy little organized aLBoP!!!

<3 Calise

The post Happy Reorganization Day! (And More Personalized Typing!!!) appeared first on A Little Bit of Personality.

{Insert fanfare here!}  You asked and we’re delivering!  The new and improved, customized *just for you*, aLBoP Personalized Typing System!!!  Now *you* can get personally typed according to the typing principles found throughout A Little Bit of Personality, and get personalized advice on how to apply things like Paradoxitype, Cognition Steps, Type Specializations, and how to be a Hero in your own unique way to *you* in your own life, with your own unique talents and struggles.  Pretty cool, no?

{Update: Due to lots of wonderful demand, the aLBoP Personalized Typing system has been updated!  Find all the details here!  Now, instead of Personalized Personality PDFs, we have made the universally applicable Cognitive Orientation Guidebooks (COGs), and then if you want to chat about how your cognition applies to you personally, you can chat on the forums  So feel free to read ahead and especially to read our personalized help for Mr. Darcy, but just be aware of the new system. :)}

In addition to a personalized pdf from me and my INFJ (he’s going to be helping with emails a lot so that I don’t freak out, and so that I can keep writing posts!  Yay!!), describing how and why we typed you the way we did, tips on understanding your cognition and why being your type is so awesome, you’re also going to receive digital downloads of desktop wallpapers and an embeddable code that says proudly how you were typed by aLBoP, so you can share the coolness with your friends


Here’s what you get:

–  An entirely personalized pdf typing *you!*  (Read on to see a fun example!)
—  Why I typed you the way I did, with examples from your email.
—  An in-depth look at *your* cognition process.
—  Why it’s so awesome that you’re the type you are.
—  Personalized tips on how to work with the natural strengths and weaknesses of your type and how to shine as a hero in *your* own way

–  3 aLBoP Wallpapers for your desktop!
—  Your Stick Person Type Hero, from the “Type Specializations: What Makes *My* Type Special?” post
—  Your type’s Cognition Process in stick people, from “The Cognition Process in Stick Figures” post
—  Your type’s “Keep Calm and…” motto, from the “Keep Calm and Be Yourself” t-shirt series
—  All resized to 2 standard desktop sizes

–  Embeddable html badge
—  Displays your type hero proudly for anywhere you want to embed html
—  Grants three wishes* (*not a guarantee)

To get *your* very own aLBoP Personalized Personality PDF and digital goodies, you need to follow these six steps:

1. Go to the handy dandy aLBoP store and choose one of the three price points.  Why three price points?  We started out asking $5 for Personalized Typings, which really was insane for the amount of work and love we put into these  So we changed the base price to $25, but we still don’t want you to miss out if you really can’t afford that.  The $5 is the “I Can’t Afford It, But You Still Love Me Anyway” price.  It includes everything the $25 version includes and we’ll respond to orders in the order received, regardless of price.  Less of these will be released at a time, so if you buy one and don’t really need it you’ll be taking it from someone who *does* really need it, and you will immediately be hit by lightning.  Well, maybe not, but it’s not cool to do.  On top of that, it probably means you’re not a very nice person, which we’ll probably be able to tell from your email and it’s likely we’ll reject even typing you and give you a refund, which I talk about below.

But if you really do need to buy the $5 version, go for it!  It’s there for you if you need it!  <3!

The $50 is just in case somebody wants to Support aLBoP at the same time as receiving an aLBoP PPP.  In addition to what comes in a traditional Personalized Typing package, the $50 Personalized Typing package includes all the benefits that “A Downpour of Love for aLBoP” provides on our Support aLBoP page.  That includes a video of my INFJ and me doing something goofy of your choice for the whole world to see!

2. Click “Add to Cart” and go through the purchasing process. It’ll ask you to sign in to PayPal, etc. so the ordering process is entirely secure and you can use a credit card, bank account or whatever method you usually use on PayPal. You should receive a receipt from Storenvy.com assuring you that your order went through. Storenvy lets us know who has ordered and helps us keep track of which orders we haven’t fulfilled yet. We’ll be looking to match up your email (step 3.) with your payment.

*Due to the time-consuming nature of Personalized Typing, we can’t give you a refund unless you request one immediately or if we can’t fulfill your order for some reason. A ton of time and love goes into these, neither of which can really be returned. <3*

Rarely, we might decide to reject typing someone and give them a refund.  We don’t do this very often, really only for people who aren’t so nice and wouldn’t appreciate an in-depth PPP anyway, so most of you have nothing to worry about there.  See the aLBoP Personalized Typing FAQ for more info.

3. The most important step: Send me an email! Write me an email about *you*, just talk and be yourself, tell me about the way you think and what’s important to you, etc.  No need to talk about anything in particular; just be you!  Oh, and send me a picture!  I won’t share it with anyone, but we’re getting *really* good at facial typing (which we’ll unveil later this year), and there have been times when seeing a reader’s picture has helped a lot when trying to decide between two types that a person seems close on.  And a person’s facial type always makes more sense in retrospect than the type we wondered if they were in the first place!  We’ll be able to type you either way, but your picture makes it easier.

Then send it to:

aLittleBitofPersonality (at) gmail (dot) com

Or just click the Gmail button in the sidebar.  This is how I type you It doesn’t have to be too personal, but of course it’ll remain confidential between my INFJ and me, and it can be as long or short as you want. Just remember that this is how I’ll give you personalized typing advice for your life as well, and I can only work with what you give me… although I have typed people from very short emails before

4. Wait. Sorry, I know this step kinda sucks, but the whole point of the new email system is so that we can get back to everyone sooner, without lowering the quality of the Personalized Typing they receive. You can expect your aLBoP Personalized Personality PDF in 1-2 weeks, with us answering on a first-come, first-serve basis. If you haven’t received your aLBoP PPP within 30 days, we’ll refund your money and send you your typing for free. In the meantime, this is an ideal chance to get caught up on your aLBoP reading!

5. Receive personalized typing! Delivered right to your email inbox in loving, digital, incorporeal arms, you will receive your aLBoP Personalized Personality PDF, as well as your desktop backgrounds and embeddable badge, for your enjoyment and pleasure!  (Assuming your email provider isn’t a spam witch-hunter I *promise* I’ll never send you spam!! If the email gets marked as spam or accidentally deleted, I’ll be happy to resend it.)  Also, if you could send me a brief reply saying you got it, it’d be much appreciated.  I get all sweaty palmed and worried if I don’t hear that you received it

6. Cheer! Be happy Now you’ve been officially typed by aLittleBitofPersonality.com and now you can go forward and shine as the hero you were always meant to be, with all these tools of personality in your pocket for your adventure! And if you think an aLBoP Personalized Personality PDF could help a friend, please send them our way!

Now, if you’ve *already* emailed me before this was post was posted, you’re not under any obligation to pay even $5.  Please accept my apologies if you’ve been waiting a long time for a response!  I know some of you emailed *months* ago and I certainly haven’t forgotten about you!  The whole point of this new system is so that I can get back to everyone in a reasonable amount of time, without sacrificing any of the attention and detail I want to pay to each of your emails.  They’ve really meant the world to me, and this blog which means so much to me, and yet which I never really expected to be more than a goofy, interesting side project and a playground for my brain, has turned into something so much bigger than me and more profound than I ever could have anticipated.  Thank you all!!!

Now, for the fun part.
I wanted to come up with an example personalized pdf as both an example of what you can expect if you request a personalized typing from aLBoP, and as a template so that when we’re responding to your emails we can have a basic outline of topics (cognition process, letter definitions, type angst, etc.) to adapt to you in your email.  I was going to make up some imaginary character, ie. Jane Doe or something, but my INFJ and I were talking about it and somehow stumbled onto the idea that an already established fictional character would be way more fun  I wanted someone that most people would know (and honestly someone in public domain).
We talked about Elizabeth Bennett, but I figured she might be confusing since different retellings of the story show her as different personality types (such as Lizzie Bennett Diaries’ ENTJ version, whom I love, but is not the same personality as the novel).  Instead, we thought, who would be better than the male deuteragonist of the archetypal chick-lit novel, Mr. Darcy?

I grew up loving BBC’s Pride and Prejudice, and Mr. Darcy especially, uber dynamic character that he is.
And not just because Colin Firth looks really good all sweaty and wet, though of course that helps  But I hadn’t really delved into the novel until this week.  While reading it, I was surprised at both how accurate the miniseries is to the feeling and situations of the novel, as well as how many new-to-me and hilarious parts of the book I’d never even heard before.  I had so much fun imagining Mr. Darcy stumbling onto my blog and writing me an email to ask about his personality type (probably throwing out a few possibilities as most people do), and telling me about his life in general and the way he thinks about things.  The following email (which I would send to him in pdf form) is my “response” and all the quotes from “his email” are direct quotes from the novel.  I’m kinda shocked my own self how well it came together and how much the things Darcy says in the book apply to typing principles.  If you guys like this kind of thing, I may have to write “emails” to other characters, whether new or archaic.  I swear, every time I watch Bones I have a headful to say to Dr. Temperance Brennan about how to be a healthy INTP…

Here’s the “email.”  The image version is linked down below, for Pinning, Tumbling, etc.

You prioritize looking inside yourself, aligning all the information you already have first and *then* turning and applying it to the outside world.  Your best friend (who sounds like an ENFJ), does the opposite, watching others for information and input, which he then processes inside his head.

J/P was the hardest for me to tell with you.  Judging vs. Perceiving is, in my experience, one of the most crucial factors of type and yet one of the most commonly confused.  It makes such a difference because, unlike the other three letters, flipped J/P will mean a *completely* different order of cognition steps with practically opposite strengths.  At first glance, INTJ and INTP speak very similarly, but on closer inspection you focus on the Judging half of the cognition process, making decisions based on principles (IJ), rather than on the Perceiving half of the cognition process, drawing observations from specific data and details (IP).

You may at times be tempted to feel guilty for the fire-breathing strength of INTJ, but as you seek to be the healthiest version of yourself you will shine with all the unique power and control that INTJ has to offer.  The world needs your special insight into what the world can be and how to get it there!  Just remember to be patient with people, and use your fiery powers for good and not evil   There are so many exciting examples of INTJs in both fiction and history, and you should never feel ashamed of embracing all that searing zeal!  Allow yourself a nefarious laugh >:D  When you shine as you, when you appreciate others’ unique strengths which are different from yours, and when you boldly own up to your own draconian potential, then I think everyone will be surprised at how much they all *like* what a dragon you are!

Don’t be afraid to embrace your Paradoxitypeof ENFP, the Standard-Bearer; practice wearing your heart on your sleeve and don’t be afraid to try being a little more EP about being okay making mistakes and rolling with it

Remember that as an INTJ you’re likely to struggle against “Anakin Angst,” the fear that everything that goes wrong is your fault because you had the power to control it and did not.  But you can’t be responsible for other people’s choices, and in trying to keep the world between your fingers you may actually end up emulating the people you saw breaking the world in the first place.

You wouldn’t want to dismiss your feelings for your sister (you seem like an awesome big brother, btw!  Aww ;D), or for your best friend so easily, so why be so quick to dismiss your feelings about this girl you like?  You said, “In vain I have struggled.  It will not do.”  This may be an insanely EP thing for me to say but, why are you even struggling with this?  imho, you seem to be fighting your better judgment about this topic.  Try just being real with her.  A little emotional honesty goes a long way… especially with (as you described her) an ENTP

Thank you so much for your great email, Darcy!  I hope you stick around and keep reading the blog I have so much more I want to say about INTJ and all the types!  It’s great getting to know about you and I really am *sooo* grateful for the support

<3 Calise

                                                                                                                                                                

 

Image version here!

Can I just point out how much smoother the next while of Darcy’s life would have gone if he *had* emailed me and applied the things I said?  Oh well, it all turned out in the end

I was wondering how to wrap this up and my INFJ said to say, “I love you!!!” in falsetto, so that’s what I’m going to do… er… except the falsetto.  (He tells me my falsetto comes naturally :P!)  But *thank you* guys!  It’s been an honor and a privilege this first (almost) year of aLBoP and I really do <3 you guys so much!  Your emails, your comments, your repins and your “Likes” have buoyed me up immeasurably.

In return, you can look forward to some (imho) awesome content this coming year!  From the next few posts being things like INTP, The Alchemist and Type Group Dynamics: The Avengers (with an *ahmazing* gif my INFJ just made and the first aLBoP video), to new long-term projects in coming months, including an entire series on *Facial Typing* this year should be a good one at aLBoP!

So get your Personalized Personality Typing, and suit up.  We’re in for a pretty big adventure.

The post Personalized Typing: Mr. Darcy and the New Email System appeared first on A Little Bit of Personality.